Rebuilding the Edge takes as its point of departure the depopulation of small centers in Italy over the last century, a social reality with a direct impact on the built environment and consequences for citizens, local and national. The project focuses on the redevelopment of the Sulmona-Carpinone rail line in the region of Abruzzo and what this means for depopulating centers along it. By studying this event at a variety of scales–national, territorial, and local–Rebuilding the Edge explores how architecture can make a contribution to issues usually tackled by non-spatial thinkers, such as politicians, policymakers and economists. In this effort, the project questions architecture’s methodologies of research, its relationship to social responsibilities, and the nature of the design process.
Rebuilding the Edge is a mapping exercise. It is a reprogramming strategy for struggling towns along an infrastructural reinvestment project. It is also a design project for a single station along the rail that can maximize a town’s ability to capitalize on incoming economic activity.
This project is only the beginning of a research initiative in partnership with Fondazione Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, and MIT's Urban Risk Lab. Liminal, a research design and consultancy group that uses a multi-disciplinary approach to tackle the challenges that lie ahead for the Italian countryside in the coming century, is actively working with the community of Pettorano Sul Gizio to participate to governmental funding in order to repurpose the abandoned infrastructure in the town. As part of the initiative Liminal will host a three weeks workshop with MIT students along with, Fondazione F.S. MIT Italy and MIT Urban Risk Lab. For two-and-a-half weeks, students will have the opportunity to experience the territory traversed by the rail line, working out of a popup research outpost within the recently renovated station at Roccaraso. The workshop will invite students to think about the future of Italian inner and southern areas, as well as the relationship between regional infrastructure projects and small communities affected by them.

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